Bibliograph

Dangerous designs, Asian women fashion the diaspora economies, Parminder Bhachu

Type

Label

Dangerous designs, Asian women fashion the diaspora economies, Parminder Bhachu

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-189) and index

Illustrations

portraitsfacsimilesillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Dangerous designs

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionariesbibliography

Responsibility statement

Parminder Bhachu

Sub title

Asian women fashion the diaspora economies

Summary

This text tells the story of Asian fashion in the West, from top designers such as Ritu Kumar and Catherine Walker to the tiny back-street shops, homeworking businesses and street fashions where global markets collide with local and regional trends., In late-1990s Britain, the salwaar-kameez or 'Punjabi suit' emerged as a high-fashion garment. Popular both on the catwalk and on the street, it made front-page news when worn by Diana, Princess of Wales and by Cherie Booth, the wife of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.In her ethnography of the local and global design economies established by Asian women fashion entrepreneurs, Parminder Bhachu focuses on the transformation of the salwaar-kameez from negatively coded 'ethnic clothing' to a global garment fashionable both on the margins and in the mainstream. Exploring the design and sewing businesses, shops and street fashions in which this revolution has taken place, she shows how the salwaar-kameez is today at the heart of new economic micro-markets which themselves represent complex, powerfully coded means of cultural dialogue and racial politics. The innovative designs of second-generation British Asian women are drawn from characteristically improvisational migrant cultural codes. Through their hybrid designs and creation of new aesthetics, these women cross cultural boundaries, battling with racism and redefining both Asian and British identities. At the same time, their border-crossing commercial entrepreneurship produces new diaspora economies which give them control over many economic, aesthetic, cultural and technological resources. In this way, the processes of global capitalism are gendered, racialized and localized through the interventions of diasporic women from the margins

Target audience

specialized

Classification